


The Namesake

by The_Passing_Queer



Category: Little Women Series - Louisa May Alcott
Genre: Gen, Mentor/Protégé, Music, Piano, child protagonist, future-set, ghost story, intergenerational
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-16
Updated: 2020-06-16
Packaged: 2021-03-04 02:55:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,095
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24746452
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/The_Passing_Queer/pseuds/The_Passing_Queer
Summary: Bess Laurence, Amy and Laurie's daughter, is becoming a skilled piano player – skilled enough to earn the respect of another musician who used to play on the same piano.A one-off story about our debt to the previous generation, and the spirit of music to connect us to our ancestors.
Relationships: Amy March & Elizabeth "Bess" Laurence, Elizabeth March & Elizabeth "Bess" Laurence
Comments: 1
Kudos: 12





	The Namesake

_ Do so la, la si do so fa–– _

The notes came slowly, as she rehearsed. 

_ So la fa mi, mi mi mi-la-so-fa-do–– _

She grumbled. Her fingers retraced the correct path.

_ So la fa mi, mi mi-la-so- _ mi _ -do _ ––

The piano was old, and in dire need of tuning. But her errors couldn’t be blamed on the piano wire. So she repeated the tune.

_ Do so la, la si do so fa––so la fa re _ ––

Another grumble. 

“Bess!” called her mother, from outside. “Your aunt Meg is here! Come out to see us!”

Bess looked over her shoulder, but hesitated to stand up from the bench. She enjoyed her aunt’s company––preferable to the high-energy visits from Aunt Jo. There was a languid quality, an unruffled sort of style, that Aunt Meg possessed, which was unique among the other members of her extended family. And, of course, there would be time spent with Daisy and Demi, running through her father’s grand estate. 

But she hesitated, before turning back to the piano. 

_ Do so la, la si do so fa––la si _ ––

“Practicing hard, I see.”

Bess turned around quickly, catching her breath. Her small hand shot up to her chest, keeping her heart from bursting through in fear. 

The room remained empty. 

She waited, her breath quick. The voice was an unfamiliar alto, and surely couldn’t have come from her mother, Amy. But no one was around to have uttered it.

She shook her golden hair, assuring herself it was a trick of the air. Some sound from her cousins outside that mingled with her inner thoughts. Surely.

Her hands returned to the keys. But she didn’t move just yet.

She tossed one final look over her shoulder, back towards the kitchen. In the afternoon light, she could see her mother and aunt at a distance, through the window.

Her eyes found the notes once again.

_ Do so la, la si do so fa––mi, mi mi mi-la-so-mi-do––fa, fa la fa, re mi so mi so mi–– _

“You have patience, little Bess.”

Bess wheeled around, her ankles just barely missing the legs of the bench. She scanned the room. Again, she was alone in the foyer––only the faint sounds of her cousins outside took away from the eerie silence of the piano room. 

Her eyes––blue, like her mothers––darted from corner to corner. Where could someone be hiding?

The voice came again. Softer now, just barely traceable, as though it was miles away and just beside Bess’ ear, all at once.

“Don’t stop playing on account of me, child. Please.”

It didn’t feel as though she was being pulled back––no one grabbed her, and she felt no physical touch. But Bess somehow knew she should return to the keys of the piano. Her feet found the pedals again, and she continued rehearsing.

_ Do so la, la si do so fa––mi, mi mi mi-la-so-mi-do––fa, fa la fa, re mi so mi so mi–– _

“You’re improving,” came the voice again.

Bess didn’t pull away from the piano, but she did extend the fermata at the end of the phrase. She needed just another moment to check for the source of the voice once again. But, of course, nothing was to be found.

She played on.

“That was the hardest part of rehearsals for me, I found,” the voice continued. “The patience to repeat the phrase over and over. Until it was just right.”

“My mother says I have plenty of patience,” Bess replied, softly.

“Your mother,” the voice repeated. It was as though the words were wrapped in velvet, the warmth with which they were said. “Your mother is one of the strongest women I know.”

Bess looked away from the page, and behind her. 

“You know my mother?” asked Bess, catching a glimpse of her mother’s day dress in the distant light.

“Oh, very closely,” the voice said. “She and I were quite close, once. I’d like to think we are close, still.”

“Huh.” Bess kept looking. 

“Sorry, I don’t mean to distract,” the voice said.

“No, it’s…” 

Bess didn’t quite have the words. 

Silence filled the room once again. Bess looked around, wishing the voice would return to her, but the air seemed lighter than before. She hadn’t realized it at the time, but as the voice spoke, she sensed her hands resting lighter on the keys.

But now, as she positioned her hands once again to start the piece, the ivory of the keys felt heavier than before.

It was an old piano, to be certain. It looked as though it had once been beautiful. Bess recalled her mother once saying it was a gift from a family friend. Her mother and father had shared a knowing glance as they said it, although Bess had been too young to wonder at the meaning of such a look. Now, twelve years old and growing more precocious daily, Bess wondered which family friend had shared this piano with the March sisters. She wondered whether it was in its current condition when her parents took it into their home, or whether Amy had ever seen it in its original condition, when it was delivered decades ago.

She rested her fingers on the keys, and began playing once again.

“What sort of music do you like playing?” the voice returned. 

“I play Mendelssohn,” Bess replied. “Bach sometimes. Schumann.”

“A fan of Schumann?”

“Yes.”

“Play me something of his.”

Bess considered the request. She looked through the sheet music sitting on the nearby table, reams of paper disorganized and falling out of folders. With some searching, she found a piece with the composer’s name printed underneath:  _ Papillons, Op. 2 _ .

“Bess!” called her mother, once again. “Come along, Daisy and Demi are waiting for you!”

With the unseen eyes of the voice watching over her, Bess launched into the piece. It was a modestly difficult piece, lots of rapid movement in the left hand and careful consideration to be given to the piece’s many fermatas. She played it more or less straight, not knowing the voice’s preferences. 

“Don’t rush,” the voice offered. Bess slowed her pace.

“Breathe, dear one.”

Bess inhaled. As she breathed out, she felt her pulse begin to align with the tempo. Her many hours of rehearsing the Schumann returned to her, and she fell into a familiar rhythm of where the notes fell as the tune continued. The room swelled with emotion as she allowed the phrases of the song to take space in the air, adding touches of interpretation where the song felt as though it asked for embellishment.

It wasn’t a long section she chose to play––the voice didn’t sound to her like the sort who would request the full fifteen minute movement. So she polished off the phrase she’d started on, before slowly lifting her hands from the piano. The last strains of the music echoed from the walls, as Bess sat patiently, awaiting the reply from the strange, warm voice.

“It’s been many years,” the voice finally intoned, “since I have heard someone play that piano as well as you have, darling.”

“Oh, um,” Bess began, unsure of how to take the compliment. “Thank you.”

“Remember,” said the voice. “There have been many songs poured into that piano over the years. Singing with family in the summer afternoon, somber marches for funeral mornings, and slow fugues for rainy evenings. But music is not all you must put into a piano, and this you must remember.”

“What else?” asked Bess.

“You must put your love into the instrument, as well.”

Bess looked once again at the piano. It was more worn than the one in the front parlor––an oft-polished baby grand that her father would tool around on during parties. But this piano, the upright in the foyer by the kitchen––this one, that her mother had told her was hers to play on––this one, where she’d seen her Aunt Jo, typically spritely and ebullient, hang her head with somber recognition––

This was a piano that had taken on a great deal of love, Bess could see that.

“Treat this piano well,” the voice commanded, gently. “What I would give to play one last minuet on its keys.”

Bess considered this, weighing the voice’s words carefully. 

“I do know a minuet,” Bess offered.

Wordlessly, Bess felt in the silence that the voice was smiling down on her. 

“That would be lovely,” the voice said.

Bess knew the song by heart, and effortlessly launched into the dance. It was a song she had learned for a recital, only a year ago. She had worked very hard to get it just right––keeping her mother and father up at all hours, pounding away at the keys. Even her instructor had commented, after her performance, that she’d never had a pupil who seemed to face the piano as an adversary, as Bess had done.

But, playing the minuet now, she discovered a more lyrical interpretation. The flow of the song was cleaner and brighter, the underscoring for so many a dance at the balls that Bess was still too young to attend. She had the voice in mind, it’s kind heart and generous lessons. She played as though the voice would not come again, may not even reply once she reached the coda at the song’s end. But she played for the voice, as though her perfection of the minuet could, in some way, conjure the voice back into the world.

She delayed the final moments of the song, not wanting the moment to end too soon, and allowed the pedal to hold the final chord out longer than she was advised to do so. The sound eased its way up into the rafters above her, and finally petered out. 

“I love you, Elizabeth.”

The voice sounded different, as though it was coming from a new direction. Bess turned to catch it.

For years, Bess would consider the following moment, replaying it in her head as she lay in bed. It was only an instant, perhaps––she justified, time and again––a trick of the eye. It couldn’t be a person, she knew. The voice was without a body, that had been certain. No one would have been able to enter the foyer without her mother catching them first. 

And yet, in her mind, Bess recalled the moment: a split-second, like a lightning strike but softer. There, by the room’s edge, a wispy body, wrapped in a knit shawl. Her auburn hair pulled back behind the shoulders, and her basket sitting in her lap. But above everything, for that briefest of moments when Bess could make out the figure, the eyes: blue, like her own, and brimming with love and affection.

“Elizabeth Laurence!” 

Her mother’s entrance broke the spell. Bess snapped her attention to her mother, now entering the room to fetch her outside. Bess caught her mother’s eye, then turned to look back where the figure had been. But the room was empty.

“My dear Bess,” Amy cried out, sounding like the mirror image of her own Marmee. “We’ve been calling for you. Are you all right, dear? You look as though you’ve seen a ghost.”

Bess looked back at her mother. There was so much she could have said, just then, that would have left both young women a crying mess. Not that Bess knew that––for her part, she considered her time with the voice to be a private moment. Something that was for her, and her alone, and thus not worth sharing with her mother. 

“I was practicing the piano,” was all she said.

“Ah, always at that piano,” Amy said, shaking her head. “You’re the very picture of her, you know that?”

“Of who, mother?”

“Never mind that now,” she said, taking her daughter by the hand. “You really must come out and join us. Your Aunt Meg is simply on pins and needles waiting for you, and Daisy is begging to show you her new shawl.”

“Yes, mother.”

Amy gently led Bess out of the room, towards the family waiting for her outside. Although she did not turn around, Bess bid a silent farewell to the piano––the old, beaten thing, full to bursting with love––leaving it peace in the room. She knew, even if she didn’t have the words to say it, that both the piano and Beth would be waiting for her, the next time she sat at its bench, and pressed music out of its worn keys.


End file.
